


A Withering Engine

by butterscotchsvelvet



Category: Cars (Pixar Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Aging, M/M, Married Life, Old Married Couple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:55:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27476890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butterscotchsvelvet/pseuds/butterscotchsvelvet
Summary: Doc's getting older, Lightning's still madly in love.Also, they're married.
Relationships: Doc Hudson & Lightning McQueen, Doc Hudson/Lightning McQueen
Comments: 1
Kudos: 41





	A Withering Engine

You met Doc when he was already old and it was a natural part of your relationship, as natural as your racing and your picky eating.  
It’s not like Doc didn’t act old, he definitely did. He acted even older due to all the medical knowledge he used to scold you; but he also did regular old man stuff like reading the paper, doing crosswords, using his index finger to type on his phone. And even if you refuse to accept it, you thought that was charming in a way, having someone caring and showing you things you never would’ve done otherwise because people your age simply forgot about them.  
Besides, you kind of have a thing for older men. It’s not obvious to you, and it’s only ever manifested with him, but you know you do based on all those things about him that you love—the whitening hair, the wrinkles, fuck, even the way his dick occasionally stayed soft. Still, Doc Hudson always found time to be deprecating and insecure about himself as a person, time to think about all the “hot young men” Lightning could be fucking if he wanted to, time to think of all the tiny things Doc couldn’t give him because the old ways were too engraved on his brain for him to get over them; but every time he brought them up, you managed to shut them down and he’d forget until next week or next month when his fears resurfaced.

And it’s not like you were getting young either. The accident was the official start of your aging, despite how premature it seemed; it brought knee problems and back problems and deafening headaches, and it slowly took part of your reflexes too. But it was fine because Doc always reassured you, a lot more than you did for him and a million times more often. He did your physical therapy and reminded you to stretch, carried your pain meds in a classic old man fanny pack and told you how beautiful he thought you were every single day, caressing the accident’s branding on your body, thumbing over your expression lines, kissing your temples. You felt like an object of his worship, still as spoiled by him as ever, and it kept you young inside.

But, sometimes you worried it made Doc older. Sure, you knew the rules about nature, but you also knew how much he took care of himself. Doc liked eating healthy, drinking water, exercising, taking vitamins. He was the kind of person who’d die at 110 years old, or so you thought, because you’ve noticed him getting slower, the way an old car does when it reaches its last year and keeps pushing and pushing for you, the motor shutting off every few hours, the pedals getting stuck no matter how much you oil them.  
It’s not a slow transition, or it doesn’t feel like one. One day things were the same way they’d always been—Doc using his cane on a bad day, and then that bad day never seemed to end. A day became two, and then three, and then you got real worried because you know Doc is an avid defender of mobility devices but absolutely hates using his own, so against your better judgement you decide to bring it up, to make sure he didn’t get hurt without your knowledge.

“S’nothing, kid. Was just thinking about how expensive this was for how little I use it and felt kinda guilty about it, it’ll wear off”, that’s what he said, settling the topic, but it wasn’t quite like that because you could tell something hurt; Doc was never the type of person who’d sit at any given opportunity until now, Doc was never the type of person who’d go from driving at least twice a week to twice a month, and Doc never, ever, leaned on your shoulder to steady himself up.  
For some reason, it’s that last thing that hits you the most, because it’s impossible to hide or overlook and he knows it. It’s heart wrenching to see the way he acts about it, the apologetic glow over his ever-bright blue eyes and the way he sometimes shuts them for a few seconds, like he could make the situation disappear and not worry about it, or rather, not worry about you worrying about it, because that’s Doc Hudson for you. He could be bleeding out and still take not staining your shirt as his biggest priority.  
And that’s you for Doc Hudson. He could be falling down, the world trembling at his feet, and you’d stuck yourself to the ground to be his anchor. If he lets you. If he stops being so stubborn. If he finds a way to stop himself from believing he isn’t worthy of you if he’s not always strong enough to take care of you..

This is also how it really hit you that he used to be a regular smoker in his youth. You knew, you’d seen him in pictures and extremely old tapes, but you thought the fact that he’d quit so long ago meant you’d never get a reminder as strong and specific as his coughing fits, that eventually wake him up at night and he tries to hide from you, in a way that he never did before, not even with his loud grandad sneezes.  
That’s when you get more worried. Worried to the point where you force him to get as many tests as he can think of because you’ve seen enough shows to link it with fucking lung cancer and you know for a fact that you’ve never been so happy when he gets all his negative results back and he reads them to you.

“See, Lightning? I told you. M’getting old, that’s all it is. It’s part of life.”

But he doesn’t seem as relieved. It’s like he expected bad news, something to pin and blame for the decline in his body, something tangible other than his age, but you’re so fucking glad he’s right.

A part of life.  
You can’t imagine getting a better reason than that, so you kiss his cheek for as long as you can to remind him that you don’t care if this is happening because he’s old and rusting. You have enough experience with rattling cars, you’ll manage.


End file.
